TWELVE ARRESTED AND CHARGED FOR FEEDING THE HOMELESS

Twelve people in El Cajon, California, near San Diego, were feeding the homeless in a local park and were arrested and charged with a misdemeanor for violating a city ordinance that forbids sharing food in a city park. See story HERE.

An excerpt: “In El Cajon on Sunday, a volunteer organization named Break the Ban manned tables offering breakfast bars, oranges and bananas, hygiene supplies and socks at a local park. Within an hour, the police arrived threatening to arrest those who defied the ban. Volunteers shouted angrily at them, and they began issuing misdemeanor citations.

Scott Dreher, an attorney to the organizers who was present at the event, described the ordinance a restriction on his free-speech rights. ‘It prevents me from exercising my right to share food with those people in need, which is an expression of speech by action,’ he said. ‘There are other, non-first-amendment-restrictive, ways to accomplish the city’s stated goal of preventing the spread of hep A, namely, by cleaning up the parks and providing and encouraging use of public restrooms and hand-washing.‘”

Mike W

Permanent link to this article: http://lacatholicworker.org/2018/01/16/twelve-arrested-and-charged-for-feeding-the-homeless